Strict control on enterprises violating specialized inspection

Inspection imported goods at Saigon port area 4. Photo: T.H

Difficulties when handling enterprises decamping

According to Deputy Director of HCM City Customs Department Nguyen Huu Nghiep, by implementing the regulation in Article 32, Circular 38/2015/TT-BTC of Ministry of Finance dated 25/3/2015, on facilitating enterprises in import-export activities, the Customs Branch under HCM City Customs Department has resolved for enterprises to bring goods to the storehouse waiting for the results of specialized inspection in accordance with regulations. However, at present, there are still many cases of enterprises owing for specialized inspection results, and although branches have implemented many professional measures to urge enterprises, and there are difficulties leading from handling cases of enterprises fleeing, not operating at business registration address.

Based on the statistics of HCM City Customs Department, as of 15/5/2018, there are 272 enterprises violating the customs management policy for goods that have been brought to the store pending specialized inspection results. In that, 240 enterprises were not allowed to carry goods for preservation because it violated customs management policy for goods brought to the store waiting for the results of specialized inspection, because the enterprises were overdue 30 days since submission of inspection results; 26 enterprises that have delayed submitting specialized inspection results were fined for administrative violations and cannot be put on preservation within 6 months from the date of issuance of the sanctioning decision, and 6 enterprises are suspended for 1 year for taking goods placed in storage. Besides not handling goods for preservation, the HCM City Customs Department notified the list of violating enterprises to local customs units in the country for coordination in order to not let these enterprises take goods to storehouses for preservation.

Remarkably, in recent years, some enterprises have taken advantage of regulations to put goods on the market which were waiting for the results of specialized inspection and then running away from their business registration address. For those companies, the Customs Branches have sent customs officers to local authorities for verification and detecting of enterprises that have escaped, missing, or no longer operate at the business registration address and goods were also no longer at the storehouse. Customs authorities sent official letters to verify the operation status of enterprises to the local tax department and the local Department of Planning and Investment. The results from their responses showed that in a few cases enterprises had declared insolvency and closed their tax code, but most cases had not closed their tax code and the businesses were still running as well as not operating from their business venue. Through the verification of the status of goods inspection by the specialized inspection authorities, some enterprises did not produce goods immediately when brought back for preservation. In some cases enterprises had finished specialized inspection, but they ran away so the specialized inspection authorities could not gather conditions for giving conclusions of results (waiting for supplementing dossiers, waiting for re-assessment at the request of enterprise,…)

After verifying, investigating and having sufficient grounds to determine "Enterprises have not preserved the original status of goods at the place of preservation" in accordance with the provisions of Article 32, Circular 38/2015/TT-BTC and have run away, missing from the business registration address, the Customs Branch has gathered evidences and made official documents for information exchanging with the police in order for handling in accordance with the law. Specifically, the Saigon port area 1 Customs Branch has collected documents, exchanged information with the police of District 2. However, those official letters were denied without giving any reasons by District 2 police.

In order to deal with the above cases, the HCM City Customs Department proposed to apply professional handling on the system, avoid the backlog of declarations, and at the same time make a list of these companies for reporting and then requesting to the General Department of Vietnam Customs to coerce enterprises which do not carry out customs procedures nationwide.

There needs to be sanctions for handling

In the case of enterprises deliberately delaying the completion of specialized inspection procedures, the HCM City Customs Department said that although the legal documents have very strict regulations on the rights and responsibilities of parties in the process of carrying goods for preservation and waiting for the results of specialized inspection with specific sanctions about time, in reality, the official document of the specialized inspection authorities at the border-gate Customs Branches shall only record reasons for the delay of issuing the results because "Enterprises have not asked to check", "enterprises have not added dossiers". These documents are usually not committed to confirm the time limit for the results of specialized inspection as prescribed. Many declarations that have prolonged the period of carrying preserved goods throughout the year have not yet confirmed the results of the specialized inspection.

The determination of the results of the specialized inspection is the responsibility of the authorities, but inspection agencies and businesses pushing responsibility during the implementation leads to prolonging the time of the results. But for the indefinite verification of the state of bad debts of the specialized inspection, they are still responsible for supervising the goods brought for preservation at the checkpoint outside the border for a long time without any direction of treatment, but also, there are no sanctions to force the authorities to have an accurate date.

According to the above, the HCM City Customs Department’s advice for cases of debt with overdue business results of over 6 months from the date of bringing the goods to the store and maintaining the status of goods at the place of goods, do not cooperate to complete inspection conclusions (according to the official letter of the Institute of Science and Technology, the reason for the explosion of delays in the results of specialized inspection is because "the company has not requested inspection" "enterprise has not supplemented dossier"). Therefore, the agency cannot determine the time limit for inspection results. The customs agency can make minutes of a violation by an enterprise on the behavior of "import goods do not meet requirements on conditions”, and to revise the item as stipulated in Decree No. 45/2016 / ND-CP dated 26/5/2016 on amending and supplementing some articles of Decree No. 127/2013 / ND-CP, dated 15/10/2013 of the Government on sanctioning of administrative violations and enforcement of administrative decisions in the customs domain.